The last two weeks we've had a few of our CSA items go bad. I made a promise to myself to step up my efforts to use all of everything we receive. This week we got quite a bit of two things no one in my family really likes that much: cucumbers and zucchini. The cucumbers were little ones that reminded me of pickles and I had no idea what to do with two entire boxes of them. I've been wanting to learn to can, and even though I've always been a little intimidated by it, I decided this was the perfect time to teach myself how to do it.
After purchasing the necessary canning supplies and reading up on canning online, I got Noah down for a nap and set to work
making pickles. Be warned that if you do this, your house will smell very pickle-y for quite a few hours afterwards. Unfortunately Noah woke up after only sleeping for about 25 minutes, but I loaded him into the
Beco on my back and continued working. He hung out there while I finished the entire process, gleefully smashing crackers in his hands and shoving the crumbs down the back of my shirt. After a lot of manipulating hot jars with funny utensils, in the place of all those cucumbers I had eight jars full of pickles! As a disclaimer, we haven't actually tried any of the pickles yet but they really do look like pickles and smell like pickles so I'm feeling pretty positive that they will taste like pickles too.
I wanted to make bread with all the zucchini so yesterday we made three loaves of regular zucchini bread, which is always yummy. One loaf went into the freezer, and the other two loaves were, um, scarfed down almost immediately by a certain pregnant person who had forgotten how much she actually loves zucchini bread. Today we made two loaves of Zucchini Parmesan bread. I hadn't made it before but the recipe was from Everyday Food so I figured it would probably be good. It did look good and as I took the above picture I really couldn't wait to eat it, but I didn't like the flavor much, so I took the other regular zucchini bread loaf out of the freezer and ate that instead. Yes, that's right. I have, in fact, eaten three loaves of zucchini bread in the past two days. The worst part is, I'm pretty sure that tomorrow I'm going to run to the store and buy some more zucchini.
The last two weeks we've had a few of our CSA items go bad. I made a promise to myself to step up my efforts to use all of everything we receive. This week we got quite a bit of two things no one in my family really likes that much: cucumbers and zucchini. The cucumbers were little ones that reminded me of pickles and I had no idea what to do with two entire boxes of them. I've been wanting to learn to can, and even though I've always been a little intimidated by it, I decided this was the perfect time to teach myself how to do it.
After purchasing the necessary canning supplies and reading up on canning online, I got Noah down for a nap and set to work making pickles. Be warned that if you do this, your house will smell very pickle-y for quite a few hours afterwards. Unfortunately Noah woke up after only sleeping for about 25 minutes, but I loaded him into the Beco on my back and continued working. He hung out there while I finished the entire process, gleefully smashing crackers in his hands and shoving the crumbs down the back of my shirt. After a lot of manipulating hot jars with funny utensils, in the place of all those cucumbers I had eight jars full of pickles! As a disclaimer, we haven't actually tried any of the pickles yet but they really do look like pickles and smell like pickles so I'm feeling pretty positive that they will taste like pickles too.
I wanted to make bread with all the zucchini so yesterday we made three loaves of regular zucchini bread, which is always yummy. One loaf went into the freezer, and the other two loaves were, um, scarfed down almost immediately by a certain pregnant person who had forgotten how much she actually loves zucchini bread. Today we made two loaves of Zucchini Parmesan bread. I hadn't made it before but the recipe was from Everyday Food so I figured it would probably be good. It did look good and as I took the above picture I really couldn't wait to eat it, but I didn't like the flavor much, so I took the other regular zucchini bread loaf out of the freezer and ate that instead. Yes, that's right. I have, in fact, eaten three loaves of zucchini bread in the past two days. The worst part is, I'm pretty sure that tomorrow I'm going to run to the store and buy some more zucchini.
6 comments:
Oh, Sarah, you are so, so lucky to be able to eat all those calories! I wonder how many of your readers, like me, are wishing we could eat with abandon as you can at this stage of your life! I am impressed with your pickles.
Mom
Your pickles definitely look like pickles! Yum!
We got some beets in our CSA box that I'm thinking about pickling. We are not beet people, but I wonder if all that vinegar will make them taste better?
Those pickles look yummy. I agree with your mom; you're lucky to be able to eat all those calories!
YUM! I want some of your pickles :) Those look so tasty! Have you tried grillig your zucchini? I like doing that and making sandwhiches with sprouts. They are really tasty!
You are a busy little bee! Those pickles look good.
Way to go on the pickles. I want to try canning, too, but haven't had the gumption to dive in. How long until you know if the pickles worked?
We shred our zucchini and freeze it in 2 cup portions and use it throughout the year, adding it to various things like spaghetti sauce and breads.
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